


You’ll Never Know (how much i love you)

by HunterPeverell



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, But Also Kind of Sad??, Character Death, Feels, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Not set in any movie, Now With A Second Chapter, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Steve Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, There Be Death, Why Did I Write This?, You Decide, happy-ish ending, idk - Freeform, it's happy, just death, sort of, ye be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-02 23:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11520228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: Who knew it would end this way?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...
> 
> *throws fic down and runs away*
> 
> I DON'T EVEN KNOW, OKAY, I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS SONG AND THIS HURT TO WRITE.
> 
> Disclaimer: I still, amazingly enough, don't own Steve, Bucky, or anything affiliated with Marvel. I just like playing around.
> 
> From this Prompt: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/387028161706467756/

He couldn’t remember when he had been hit, only that the pain of it ripped through him like a ship through water. It cut into every tendon, every ligament, every patch of skin. He didn’t know what weapon had been used, but he thought, with perfect clarity, _I’m going to die._

“STEVE!” a distant voice screamed. There was a roar, the ground shook with an explosion, and a bit of dust fell on his face and into his already dry throat.

He didn’t scream—at least, he didn’t think he did. His jaw was clenched tight, his teeth grinding together, but he didn’t think he made a sound.

The patter of feet approaching mingled with the patter of gunfire. Whoever had approached him—Steve could only hope it was one of his teammates—skidded to their knees and let out a desperate half-scream.

“WE NEED A MEDIC!” they yelled and this close, Steve knew that voice, knew it more than he knew himself. He forced himself to unlock his jaw, for his lips to form words.

“Bky,” he gurgled, and something warm and thick splattered out of his throat and down his cheek, down his chin.

“Oh my God, Stevie, no,” Bucky whispered. Steve couldn’t see—his eyes were open, weren’t they? He blinked, but the darkness didn’t go away. Hands came to cradle his cheeks, one warm, one cold. Steve whimpered at the pain and whimpered again when the hands were withdrawn.

He felt the air of Bucky’s hands as they drifted helplessly over Steve’s form.

“There’s no blood,” Bucky gasped, and Steve could tell from his voice that he was crying. Bucky hadn’t shown much emotion ever since HYDRA, but now he sounded as though he was about to fall apart.

Steve tried to reach out, but was wracked with a fresh wave of pain. Now that his jaw had unlocked, he let out a scream that tore his throat and slashed itself into the open air.

“Was that Cap?” he heard someone distantly demand, but all he could hear was Bucky as his best friend tried and failed to find a wound.

“No, Steve, no, please,” Bucky pleaded. “Please, I need you, Steve, God, I need you, stay with me…”

Steve didn’t know how to tell him, didn’t know if he had the energy, but the pain had nearly reached his heart.

“God, Steve,” Bucky said, prayed. There was a pause, and Steve just wanted Bucky to talk, to hear him one last time, to hear him… hear his voice…

Bucky began to sing in a small, broken voice. Off-key, rusty, each word pulled from his lips as though they had been forced, he sang. 

_“The other night dear, as I lay sleeping, I dreamed I held you in my arms. When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken, so I hung my head and I cried.”_

Steve remembered when that song first appeared, back in ’39. Becca had loved it, had made Bucky sing it with her. Bucky had sung it to Steve when Steve was sick that winter, his third round of pneumonia. Steve had clung to that song, to Bucky's soothing tones. The words wrapped him up in warmth and comfort and _home,_ and when Steve had awoken from the ice, he had listened to it, remembering that tiny, cramped apartment and the deep voice treading across well-loved words...

He hadn’t known Bucky had remembered.

“Bucky,” Steve murmured, his words still garbled with blood. He reached out a trembling hand and grasped Bucky’s. Bucky moaned and shuffled closer, holding Steve as best he could. Every touch sent a flare of agony through Steve, but it wouldn’t last long.

The pain had reached his heart.

Bucky continued even as the ground shook with another explosion and people shouted in the distance. _“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you,”_ and here Bucky’s voice broke. _“Please don’t take my sunshine away …”_

And it all went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By request (and mmouse15's demands) I've uploaded the ... uh ... happier-happy-ish ending.
> 
> There be more death. Ye be warned.

Bucky could feel Steve’s body grow lax as life fled his veins and his cells took one final rest. The words caught in his throat, yet he couldn’t stop singing the little song over and over again, wishing it could heal Steve, wishing the words were laced with magic, magic that would bring Steve back.

But unlike the sun, Steve would never rise again.

Oblivious to the noise around him as their—his—teammates fought for their lives, Bucky sat with a corpse, head bent, shoulders heaving, voice wavering and quiet.

_“Y-you are my s-sunshine,”_ he choked out, _“m-my only s-sunshine, you m-make me happy when s-skies are grey…”_

He rubbed his thumb in the cradle of soft skin beneath Steve’s open and unseeing eye, blue even in death, the eyelid sticking together at the corner. Bucky pulled it down, and it almost looked like Steve had blinked.

Bucky had loved Steve all his life, had felt warm and alive when with him. He had walked through hell for his little punk and didn’t regret his choice in friends.

But why? Why was the universe so cruel, so heartless as to give Bucky the life it had? Doomed to love someone who wouldn’t live to see thirty, then cursed with a nightmarish war that never seemed to end, then flung into a memory-less, bloody, inhumane existence, and now…

Now the only person worth fighting for—worth _living_ for—lay dead in his arms.

“Soldier, look out!” he heard someone say as a high-pitched whistle sounded through the air.

Bucky bent forward and pressed his lips to Steve’s, and whispered against their stillness:

_“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…”_

The explosion hit only a few inches away, and for one second everything was agony, and even the Chair paled in comparison to the pain…

But then…

Then there was light, there was the rustle of leaves and the burble of water. There was the shifting of a warm body next to his.

When Bucky blinked his eyes open, it was to a sun-lit field with a stream snaking across the valley, copses of trees dotting the stunning area he found himself in.

He sat on the side of a hill, bathed in light. He looked down to find the metal arm was gone, and while he still only had one arm, the stump was smoothed out in a way it had never been before.

“Bucky,” the voice said behind him.

Bucky started and looked over his shoulder, not feeling threatened even though he hadn’t heard the person approach.

Steve.

Bucky’s breath caught in his chest as he took in the sight of the person he loved best.

Steve looked healthy. He wasn’t Captain America anymore, but like he was before, but _healthier._ His cheeks glowed with life and his thin arms and legs had more meat on them, more muscle. His breaths didn’t wheeze and his eyes were steady, calm.

“Steve,” Bucky choked out.

“I’m so sorry I left you, Buck,” Steve murmured.

“We’re dead.”

A nod.

“We’re together.”

Steve’s face split into a broad smile. “Yeah.”

“Forever?”

Steve sat down next to Bucky and took his hand, threading their fingers together so tightly Bucky relished the dull pain.

_“You will never know how much I love you.”_ Steve’s eyes were intense when they met Bucky’s and so very, very blue. Bucky felt as though he was drowning.

Steve reached over with his free hand and cupped Bucky’s cheek, giving him a small, sad smile.

Bucky let out a shaky breath and sang the last line along with Steve, _“Please don’t take my sunshine away…”_

Steve and Bucky smiled at one another and sat there, together, where nothing could ever hurt them again.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are beloved and feed my heart!
> 
> I do have a happier ending I could post if anyone was interested. It's not long, but I could wrangle it into a second chapter. Let me know!


End file.
